


Booty, Booty, Booty. Booty Rocking Everywhere

by quipquipquip



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-08
Updated: 2011-11-08
Packaged: 2017-10-25 20:50:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quipquipquip/pseuds/quipquipquip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>gen, reboot!fic. Dick and Steph bond over terrible music and Damian disapproves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Booty, Booty, Booty. Booty Rocking Everywhere

When Grayson had told him that his father would be returning as Batman, Damian had assumed that his life would fall into a certain preordained pattern. He had been told from birth that he _would_ take his spot at his father’s side, and that he _was_ the only one fit to be his trusted partner. His caretakers had whispered his mother’s wishes into his ear as he grew, feeding his isolated childhood with rosy dreams of being that necessary, that wanted, that excellent. His first try at attaining that dream had been what Dick quaintly referred to as ‘a total shitshow’. Mother had not deigned to explain to him the many rules of Bruce Wayne, so Damian had broken them all with the destructive clumsiness of a drunken bull. It had taken him years and a partnership with Grayson to redeem himself in his father’s eyes, even partially. Much of that redemption hadn’t been won by acts or achievements, but by his ‘brother’ putting in a good word for him.

When he’d learned that his father would be returning as the Batman of Gotham, and that he was meant to be his Robin---finally---he’d expected his dream to play out the rest of the way. The Cave would be theirs, a temple of training and meditation dedicated to the _true_ masters of the Wayne estate. The streets would be theirs, father and son working as Batman and Robin. Everything would be just as he’d imagined it when he’d been a little boy a half world away from the slick gray streets of the American city, lulled to sleep by dreams of greatness.

In retrospect, it’d been a stupid assumption. Experience ought to have taught him better than all that, but Damian had held fiercely to that well-worn knot of hopes and dreams. Yes, his father had reclaimed his mantle and his place in the city, but he had not changed---nor, Damian felt, had he recognized that _he_ had changed. His father held him at arm’s length, assigning training regiments and reading. He gave him loads of busywork that he deemed necessary, but that Damian recognized as having one use and one use alone: keeping him off the street. If he was preoccupied with whatever ‘homework’ Batman assigned, he was grounded as Robin.

It hurt. It hurt that Father didn’t _want_ him at his side, it hurt that he claimed to work better on his own---but habitually worked alongside Red Robin---and it hurt that he thought him so woefully unprepared. Grayson had known that he was an asset in battle, even as young as he was. Grayson had respected him, but he was no longer Batman. He was Nightwing again, and Nightwing needed no partner.

Even still, he saw more of Grayson than he did of his father, since Dick used the training facilities in the cave. Bruce Wayne had spared no costs whatsoever when designing the training rooms and furnishing them with equipment, so no civilian gym membership could hold a candle to the facilities in the cave. In the days of yore, they had been reserved just for Batman and his Robin, but his father’s return had changed the definition slightly. Yes, the cave was only for Batman and his Robin, but _former_ Robins were allowed use of the training rooms, too.

Damian imagined that this decision had been fueled largely by guilt. He’d displaced Grayson---though Dick seemed perfectly happy to return to being Nightwing---and Barbara had reclaimed her mantle from Stephanie. The originals had wanted their hand-me-downs back, and neither Dick nor Stephanie had had room to deny their requests. So, father gave them the consolation prize of equipment use and a brief, significant nod of acceptance. They were allowed in because they were deemed acceptable by Father’s standards.

Damian understood, but he didn’t like it. With him nearly _grounded_ on Wayne property and his father largely gone, he spent more time with his former Batman and his former Batgirl than he did their predecessor-successors. Sometimes, he preferred that. Sometimes, he resented that.

Always, it came with a headache. The conflict of interests was manageable, but the _things_ they brought into Father’s sanctum were not.

Dick and Stephanie had never interacted much, though they were both former Robins. Damian knew this, because he had quizzed his partner furiously about _that stupid cow_ after Batgirl had accidentally flash-froze him. He’d wanted answers, he’d screeched through chattering teeth, because she’d seemed inept in every conceivable way. Dick hadn’t had much to say about her that hadn’t been stored in the databanks of the Batcave computer. The question of _what the hell is wrong with her_ had been left largely unanswered. But now that they were sharing space in the training rooms, they were getting to know each other. They were sharing interests. They were _bonding._

And Damian _hated_ watching it happen. He hated it, because sometimes Nightwing and Spoiler patrolled together, now. He hated it, because Dick taught her maneuvers that he’d taught _him_ first. He hated it, because their main shared interest was stupid, terrible music.

And with Batman out of the cave, they listened to their stupid, terrible music as loudly as they wanted to. Not even Pennyworth stopped them, though Damian commanded him to do so. The old butler had spared him an indulgent smile instead of upholding what he was convinced were his father’s wishes. He hated him for that, too.

He tried to ignore them, but with the volume of their music and his inborn curiosity, it was difficult to do so. He couldn’t read when he heard the faint strains of their shameful music booming and echoing---the lyrics mixed with whatever he was trying to focus on, and he was humming _man, I feel like a woman_ before he realized what it was he was doing. He’d tried moving far enough away from them to get peace and quiet, but then he wondered what they were up to. There was no winning, and it drove him half-crazy. He didn’t like feeling out of the loop, but anymore it seemed like that was all he ever was.

One day, he decided that he would join them. Maybe for just an hour or so, but it would be a welcome distraction from his ‘studies’, and a good way to blow off some of his frustrated energy. Maybe Dick could use a reminder that _he_ had been his partner first, too. And if he was lucky, he could scare Stephanie away from his home with sufficient growling.

Damian was satisfied with this plan until he put it into action. He grabbed his practice sword, a bottle of water, and nothing else that could have possibly prepared him for the display in the training room.

They were dancing. At least, he was fairly sure that they were dancing, because they certainly weren’t fighting. Stephanie and Dick had their backs to him, which was where all the action was happening _anyway._ They were moving their asses to the music, hips rolling and thrusting indecently.

 _“BOOTY BOOTY BOOTY, BOOTY ROCKIN’ EVERYWHERE! ROCKIN’ EVERYWHERE! ROCKIN’ EVERYWHERE!”_

It was mesmerizing, in a weird way. He’d known that Grayson had superior muscle control, but to see it used in such a fashion was...well. He had no descriptors on hand, nothing primed to describe what he was looking at and how it made him feel.

He’d seen dancing before. He’d seen nearly all the types of dancing the worlds’ cultures offered. What Dick and Stephanie were doing was one part moving to the beat, one part miming sexual intercourse, and one part the skillful contortions of a bellydancer. He wasn’t sure that it could be called _dancing_ , or that it was appropriate to do in mixed company, much less in front of children.

“What do you think you’re _doing?”_ Damian demanded, scandalized.

“Gettin’ down,” Stephanie said cheerfully over her shoulder, taking a swig from her water bottle as she continued gyrating her hips. She was wearing only a purple sportsbra and a pair of biking shorts, which, as far as Damian was concerned, was for too little to be decent. He’d never seen her outside of the full-body Batgirl suit or her fully-covering Spoiler costume; he wasn’t sure if it surprised him or not that her bare skin held heavy scarring indicative of serious torture. Either way, he didn’t like looking at it. The dissonance between that scarring and her smile made him uncomfortable in ways he couldn’t quite voice.

“You’re allowed in this space to train, not to ‘get down’,” he sniffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “If that is your goal, frequent a club like any other hussy, Brown.”

“It was my idea,” Dick said, grabbing one of the shammy towels and wiping the back of his neck. He turned down the volume, his smile sheepish. “We were talking about clubbing, and---”

Damian cut him off with a flick of his wrist.

“Enough! It’s unimportant _why_ you were grinding like harlots. I cannot even put into words my disappointment in you right now,” he told him. “You’ve started down the slippery slope to total moral decline. I thought better of you, Richard.”

“And I can’t even put into words what a walking headache you are,” Steph said, flapping her hands in a shooing motion. “If you’re going to turn your nose up at the 3:30 Batdance Party, go back to sharpening your knives, Psycho Wonder.”

 _”No,”_ Damian growled, mostly because he absolutely would not be shooed out of the room like a pet that refused to mind. “This is a shared space, and I need to use it as well. You will respect that, Brown, or you will leave.”

“Damian,” Dick said, a warning note of a would-be lecture in his tone. “You can’t just walk in here and say what is and isn’t acceptable by your training standards. There’s more than one way to skin a cat when it comes to working out.”

“More than one way to skin a cat?” He repeated, appalled. “Is that a _real_ American saying? Because it is as barbaric as what passes for dancing and music among you. I was going to train, but now I’ve lost my appetite as well as my desire to do so. And it’s all your fault.”

Ruining what ‘fun’ they were having didn’t make him feel _better_ , but it did make him feel less terrible. Maybe he didn’t have control in anything else, but he did have a say in what was done with his father’s property when he was away. That was something.

“You’ve got as much right to train here as we do,” Steph said, though she sounded annoyed. She tucked a sweaty strand of wavy blond hair behind her ear, rolling her eyes. “So stay if you want to. I’m almost done for the day, anyway. You can change the music.”

“We really shouldn’t let him---” Dick tried to say, ever the almost-adult, but Damian cut him off again.

“I think that I will,” he said, taking off his shirt. “You’re very right.”

“You could have said ‘thank you, Steph’,” she groused, rolling her eyes even harder. “‘You’re so awesome and right, Steph’.”

“I would not say that, as I don’t think it right to encourage a person’s denial,” Damian said smoothly, calling up his own playlist with a remote. _S & D’s Super Awesome Mix_ was replaced by _Training Mix 012_.

Mostly, what he listened to while working out was instrumental. He’d combed the music databanks for songs with a certain BPM, carefully choosing each for his specific workout needs. Training had been a reality of his life and a part of his daily routine since he could walk, and he treated it with the same reverence as most treated daily prayers.

But at the same time, he _was_ a twelve year old boy.

 _“I’m living in the 21st century, doin’ something mean to it,”_ the speakers boomed, and Damian braced himself. _“Doin’ it better than anyone ya ever seen do it. Screams from the haters, got a nice ring to it. I guess every superhero gotta need his theme music.”_

Oh, no. This was not the mix he had meant to call up. This was his _personal_ mix, reserved for the hours that he knew he would be left undisturbed.

“Is this...” Steph’s mouth puckered as she tried to place the lyrics. “...is this _Kanye West?”_

“Syncing beats per minute increases your efficiency!” Damian snapped, redfaced and defensive. “You use seven percent less oxygen to do the same work, and the dissociative effect results in a ten percent reduction of perceived work---and a motivational synchronized playlist can up endurance by as much as fifteen percent! It’s fucking _science!”_

“Is he always this adorable when he’s not carrying knives?” Stephanie stage-whispered to Dick out of the corner of her mouth.

“Always,” Dick stage-whispered back.

His life had been so much less difficult when they hadn’t been on friendly terms. Each was frustrating on their own, but when they teamed up they were nothing short of maddening.

“You have no place to judge me! You cannot listen to what you listen to and treat me as though my music is somehow more embarrassing than yours!”

“Damian, calm down. Nobody is judging you. We know that listening to music while you exercise has benefits---that’s why we do it,” Dick said patiently, reaching out and touching his shoulder. He hadn’t realized how much he’d _missed_ having his shoulder squeezed like that. “You know who taught me to work out to music?”

“My father?” He guessed, frowning. The idea seemed ridiculous.

“If you crack _his_ playlist, you’ll find a lot of ABBA,” Stephanie grinned. “And I mean, like. _A lot of ABBA._ He’s a dancing queen.”

“One of the Batman’s most highly-guarded secrets,” said Dick, nodding. “And now you know.”

“Idiots,” Damian growled, shrugging Dick off and stomping away. He was still bristling like an angry cat. “You’re both stupid, and I hate you.”

But the next day, he had already changed into his exercise clothes by the time they arrived to work out.

“I’ve taken the liberty of retooling your playlist to maximize effectiveness and include some of my own music,” he loftily informed them, arms crossed over his chest. “And I will be joining you today. You’re welcome.”

Dick and Stephanie exchanged a maddening grin, but he ignored it. If they could be happy with their demotion---with being _unwanted_ \---he could learn to be content from them. If they could find companionship together, maybe they would have room for him, too.


End file.
